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- MoneyGram has entered into a strategic partnership with EbixCash to expand its remittance services to the Indian market.
- The deal could benefit Ripple and the XRP token in the long term, although the announcement does not explicitly mention them.
MoneyGram, a key partner for Ripple and its XRP token, is expanding into the Indian market. The company has entered into a strategic partnership with EbixCash, a subsidiary of Ebix Inc. to provide enhanced remittance services to millions of consumers across India. The partnership will enable MoneyGram to reach consumers across India through its 320,000 distribution points distributed in 4,000 cities and some 75,000 rural villages.
According to a press release, EbixCash customers at these locations will now be able to access the MoneyGram platform to send or receive money to family and friends in over 200 countries and territories, quickly and cost-effectively. India is currently one of the world’s leading recipients of remittances. Many people work abroad and send monthly salaries back to their families.
For MoneyGram, this opens up a huge new market for remittances. According to the press release, the partnership aims to serve a remittance volume of USD 3 billion annually. This volume is to be achieved primarily through remittances from the main sender markets outside India.
Grant Lines, Chief Revenue Officer of MoneyGram, commented on the new partnership:
India remains the world’s top recipient of remittances, and we’re excited to better serve this critical market through our partnership with EbixCash, a leading brand with an approximate 80% share of locations in the country.
Robin Raina, Ebix Inc. chairman, president and chief executive officer, added:
We are excited with the nature of this strategic partnership which is a win-win for both sides. Being a master agent for MoneyGram, our interests will now be perfectly aligned to ensure that MoneyGram’s reach is spread across the length and breadth of India through our strong franchisee network. We see this as a game changing deal on many fronts for us and will thus put all of our might behind this partnership.
Will Ripple benefit from the expansion?
As mentioned at the beginning, MoneyGram is probably Ripple’s most important partner. Not without reason did Ripple invest a total of 50 million dollars in MoneyGram. With them, Ripple has an established remittance service provider on board that operates worldwide and fits perfectly into the concept of the On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) technology.
With around 10 percent of the shares in MoneyGram, Ripple certainly has a certain say in corporate decisions. Although not explicitly mentioned in the announcement, the deal is expected to have a positive impact on both Ripple and the XRP token. In the long run, the integration of ODL for remittances to India seems to be only a matter of time. However, for this to happen, Ripple must first find partner exchanges in the sender markets to help provide the XRP as a bridge currency.
In line with the current bullish market sentiment, the XRP price has risen by around 2.0% at the time of writing. Compared to other top coins, such as Bitcoin (+5.1%), Ethereum (+4.1%) and Litecoin (+7.5%), the increase is rather moderate.
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